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Do you ever try so hard so hard to make a good impression that you completely blow it? That’s how I’d assess my six-course disaster — a failure of trying too hard and thinking too little.

Like the recent and stellar restaurant meal that began with sea urchin floating in a thimble of parsnip puree, a first course is supposed to be like the opening titles of a meal, a brief razzle-dazzle that says, “Here’s what you can expect from me.” For a dinner about movie titles, a series of first courses seemed like a good idea. But it only proved that you never get a seventh chance to make a first impression.

On their website, Art of the Title, Lola Landekic and Will Perkins deconstruct the opening credits of their favourite movies, frame by frame. Through interviews in which so many designers share so much concept art, they explain the origins of ’sMoonrise Kingdom’s typeface, the montage at the beginning of Soylent Green and how the Greenberg brothers in the 1978 Superman used slit-scan technology to make the title and the words “Gene Hackman” swoop through space. I remember seeing each of those movies, the titles convincing me that I could expect something special.

Art of the Title has become one of my favourite rabbit holes of procrastination, luring me in and overwhelming me with detail. But even though it’s a non-profit labour of love, the problem is that it looks too good and people assume they’ve got unlimited resources.

“We’ve dug ourselves a hole,” says Perkins. “People assume we’re hundreds of people. There’s three of us.” The third is founder Ian Albinson.

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But they’ve cultivated a strong relationship with studios and designers, who share a surprising volume of unreleased material. For contemporary titles, there’s a lot of delineation between whether they render in 3D Studio Max or V-Ray. For older work, it’s more a matter of just how they could do that without computers.

Lola Landekic and Will Perkins are two-thirds of the team behind the website Art of the Title, which deconstructs the often-dazzling opening credits of their favourite movies, frame by frame.
(Rick Madonik / Toronto Star) | Order this photo

“There is a high-minded aspect of preserving stuff,” says Perkins. “For the older guys, they’re getting up there. We want to know these stories before they’re not there to tell them.”

I mention how a lot of this minutiae seems like the extras we wouldn’t see, even on an endless stream of Star Wars DVDs.

“That’s a great example, because that’s one of the most iconic titles in movie history,” says Landekic. “But who designed them? Dan Perri. Nobody knows who he is but you can instantly recognize what he’s done. Raging Bull. Taxi Driver.”

One of the reasons these people aren’t known, even to fans who can name cinematographers and set designers, is that most titles are created by third-party contractors.

Before the 1950s, titles were produced in-house. Often the movie theatre curtains weren’t even drawn until after the credits. Then people like Saul Bass (Anatomy of a Murder, Vertigo) and Maurice Binder (the Bond series) began to turn them into showpieces for modern design. By the 1960s it was standard to outsource them to ad agencies, which also handled the teasers, posters and logos.

These days, audiences are impatient after sitting through 20 minutes of ads. They get to gabbing and texting if the titles don’t jolt them.

“You do get more talking in the slow, silent opening titles,” says Perkins.

“That’s kind of the point,” says Landekic. “It’s like an overture. It’s OK if you talk.”

It’s become fashionable to skip opening credits entirely. I might have borrowed one of those lessons for this menu.

I aimed to make a meal composed entirely of first courses, of small bites with strong flavours. What could go wrong?

Starting with a proven hit — a pumpkin soufflé stuffed with blue cheese and a warm, creamy date sauce — I forget that room temperature on this -30C night means frigid. Also it shouldn’t be more than two bites, certainly not the muffin-sized things I serve.

The honest simplicity of sweet, tiny weather-vane scallops with clementines is undermined by presentation. Years ago, someone gave me a set of ornamental spoon-shaped dishes. These might be cute for serving an amuse-bouche, I thought. And into a closet they went until this night. They are silly and ostentatious and force guests to ask, “How do I eat this?”

I manage not to screw up small bowls of baconated brussels sprouts and sake cups filled with hot buttered rum. But I get impatient waiting for a pan to heat and my sweetbreads never get crispy. My momentum of small, bad decisions makes a mess of each plate, as I splash corn sauce all over the fifth dish, dividing what I have in the pot instead of the intended sparse dollop. I literally wrote a book in which I told people not to do this.

Instead of pausing to correct my mistakes, I rush to the next one. Instead of listening to my guests at the table, I ramble, trying to show off by filling the air with pointless trivia no one asked me for.

Of all the braised meats to pull out of my freezer (beef cheeks, brisket, pork belly, lamb shoulder) to hide under a layer of mole sauce, hazelnuts and pickled onions, I should have remembered why the muskox had been buried there so long. It’s because it’s lean, dry and tasteless.

“You can get too fancy about these things,” Raymond Chandler once wrote. “You can also get not fancy enough.” Cooking doesn’t have to be perfect and I don’t mind making mistakes. But to give myself six chances to make a first impression, and in front of people who obsess so much over detail, it’s embarrassing. If this meal were a movie, I would have walked out.

Use melted butter to grease a muffin tray of six. Fill halfway with batter. Insert wedge of blue cheese in centre. Pour batter over top. Set muffin tray into a deep pan and pour in enough hot water so the level is at least as high as the squash mixture. Bake until a toothpick slides out clean, about 45 minutes. Cool in water before removing. Serve warm or at room temperature, with warm date sauce.

Makes 6 servings.

DATE SAUCE

10 medjool dates

1 cup (250 mL) cream

Use a paring knife to pit dates. In a small pot on medium heat, bring dates and cream to a light boil. Remove from heat, cover and steep for five minutes. Puree in blender until smooth.

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